reason of my constant visits; her parents were determined that the most important decision of her life should rest entirely with her.  But does not the presence of our beloved satisfy the utmost desire of passionate love?  In that presence do we not know the happiness of the Christian who stands before God?  If for me more than for any other it was torture to have no right to give expression to the impulses of my heart, to force back into its depths the burning words that treacherously wrong the yet more ardent emotions which strive to find an utterance in speech; I found, nevertheless, in the merest trifles a channel through which my passionate love poured itself forth but the more vehemently for this constraint, till every least occurrence came to have an excessive importance.

“I beheld her, not for brief moments, but for whole hours.  There were pauses between my question and her answer, and long musings, when, with the tones of her voice lingering in my ears, I sought to divine from them the secret of her inmost thoughts; perhaps her fingers would tremble as I gave her some object of which she had been in search, or I would devise pretexts to lightly touch her dress or her hair, to take her hand in mine, to compel her to speak more than she wished; all these nothings were great events for me.  Eyes and voice and gestures were freighted with mysterious messages of love in hours of ecstasy like these, and this was the only language permitted me by the quiet maidenly reserve of the young girl before me.  Her manner towards me underwent no change; with me she was always as a sister with a brother; yet, as my passion grew, and the contrast between her glances and mine, her words and my utterance, became more striking, I felt at last that this timid silence was the only means by which she could express her feelings.  Was she not always in the salon whenever I came?  Did she not stay there until my visit, expected and perhaps foreseen, was over?  Did not this mute tryst betray the secret of her innocent soul?  Nay, whilst I spoke, did she not listen with a pleasure which she could not hide?

“At last, no doubt, her parents grew impatient with this artless behavior and sober love-making.  I was almost as timid as their daughter, and perhaps on this account found favor in their eyes.  They regarded me as a man worthy of their esteem.  My old friend was taken into their confidence; both father and mother spoke of me in the most flattering terms; I had become their adopted son, and more especially they singled out my moral principles for praise.  In truth, I had found my youth again; among these pure and religious surroundings early beliefs and early faith came back to the man of thirty-two.

“The summer was drawing to a close.  Affairs of some importance had detained the family in Paris longer than their wont; but when September came, and they were able to leave town at last for an estate in Auvergne, her father entreated me to spend a couple of months with them in an old chateau hidden away among the mountains of Cantal.  I paused before accepting this friendly invitation.  My hesitation brought me the sweetest and most delightful unconscious confession, a revelation of the mysteries of a girlish heart.  Evelina . . . Dieu!” exclaimed Benassis; and he said no more for a time, wrapped in his own thoughts.